An electronic camera, a camera-equipped cell-phone and a PDA (Personal Digital Assistance) are recently popularized. In such devices, a taken image is saved as image data and the saved image data is displayed on an LCD or the like so that the taken image is viewed without printing the image. However, by organizing photo prints in an album and so forth, it is possible to efficiently carry out classification and retrieval thereof. In contrast, as to the image data taken by the electronics camera and so forth, there is a problem in that it is troublesome to classify and retrieve the image data.
Further, in recent years, an electronics camera utilizing GPS (Global Positioning System) is also popularized (for instance, a camera-equipped cell-phone having a GPS function). In this kind of the electronic camera, it is possible to store the image data to which location data of a shooting point is added. In this regard, there is a proposed technique in that a so-called landmark name of the shooting point, which is a place name, a building name and so forth, is specified from the location data added to the image data taken by the electronic camera, and the image data is classified every landmark name (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 2005-107867 and 2003-271617, for instance).
In album preparing device and method described in the above-noted Publication No. 2005-107867, an area where the image data is taken is extracted on the basis of the stored image data to prepare an album in which the image data is classified into the respective areas.
In an image classification method, an image classification system, a program and a data structure of an image file described in the above-noted Publication No. 2003-271617, GPS data is added to an image file and folders are created in accordance with the GPS data. The image file is stored in the corresponding folder on the basis of the GPS data added to the image file to classify the image files every GPS data.
In the above-noted Publication Nos. 2005-107867 and 2003-271617, however, the GPS function is poor and data of the obtained shooting location (latitude/longitude) has an error. Thus, there arises a problem in that a wrong place name and a wrong facility name are likely to be selected as the landmark name at the detection time of the shooting location. In addition, there arises another problem in that it is impossible to change the classification if the image data is classified into the wrong facility. Further, since a large number of landmarks exist within the country and areas thereof have various sizes and locations, collecting the information thereof needs very immense operation. Moreover, there is other problem in that it takes huge cost for managing the information because the landmarks disappear and newly appear with the years.